Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Proposal: Settelement House Ethos II

Timed out 4 votes to 7 (3 deferential). Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 22 May 2009 07:59:59 UTC

Create a new subrule under â€œThe Bunkerâ€ titled â€œSettlement House Ethos,â€ with the following text:

A Contestant in the kitchen may, as a weekly action but subject to the limitations in this rule, attempt to cook. The Contestant making the attempt must make a post to the main page titled â€œ{Name} is Cooking for the {Room}â€ where {Name} is the Contestant’s Name and {Room} is a Room in the bunker other than the Kitchen. The body of the post should describe the food being cooked. That Contestant must then roll DICEX where X is the number of Contestants in the Kitchen (including the Contestant who is cooking) plus the number of Contestants in the named Room unless X would be equal to 1; if X would be equal to 1 no DICE are rolled and the cooking is automatically unsuccessful. The result of the DICEX role is the â€œresultâ€. If the result exceeds X/2 rounded up, the cooking was successful, if it is less that X/4 rounded down or equal to 1, the cooking was a disaster, otherwise the cooking was merely unsuccessful. The Contestant must post a comment to the cooking post stating which of these outcomes has occurred.

If the cooking was successful, the Contestant who did the cooking may change the Support of a number of Contestants equal to the result who are in the Kitchen or the named Room to him; if, however, the result was equal to X, the Contestant may choose not to change his own support to himself as part of this process. If making these changes causes any Contestant’s Support to be the same as his Vote, that Contestant’s Vote must be set to blank. If the cooking was unsuccessful nothing happens. If the cooking was a disaster the Contestant doing the cooking must set the vote values of all Contestants in the Kitchen and the named Room, except his own, to his name. If making this change causes any Contestant’s support to be the same as his vote, that Contestant’s support must be set to its default.

Any attempt to cook renders the dishes dirty and they remain dirty until a Contestant cleans them. In order to clean the dishes a Contestant must be in the Kitchen. The Contestant doing the cleaning must add a comment to the original cooking post stating that he is â€œdoing the dishes.â€ That Contestant must then remain in the Kitchen for 24 hours; the Contestant doing the dishes must then post a comment to the cooking post stating that the â€œdishes are done,” at which point the dishes are no longer dirty. If the Contestant who is doing the dishes leaves the Kitchen for any reason before the end of that 24 hour period, he must post a comment to the cooking post stating that the â€œdishes remain dirty.â€ Any attempt to do the dishes requires a full 24 hours, regardless of any prior incomplete attempts.

A Contestant may not cook if: another Contestant has successfully cooked in the previous 24 hours, the dishes are dirty, or if that Contestant was the last Contestant to attempt to cook.

I think this answers most of the concerns raised in the first post. There is now a downside to attempting to cook. Since disaster has more severe consequences than success, however, I have made it less likely to occur. I have also provided for the situation where the consequences of cooking would violate the rule that support and vote can not have the same value. Since the consensus is that a Character can support himself, I have not forbidden the cook from changing his own support, however, I have given him the option not to do so. I have made explicit the fact that cleaning the dishes causes them to cease to be dirty. I have also removed the objectionable text-in-vote mechanism so this will be a straight up or down vote.

"Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed."